One of the rules of participation in the Virtual Blog Tour is to tag three other people.

Self’s first tag was poet and teacher Luisa A. Igloria.

Here’s self’s second tag: Kathleen Burkhalter.

She was Dear Departed Sister’s friend before she was self’s.

Dear Departed Sis died December, 1991. Self lost touch with Kathleen, but when self started this blog, in 2006, Kathleen found her.

The internet has saved self in so many ways.

Now, look at that face. Isn’t it just pure radiance?

Kathleen Burkhalter: Writer, Mother, Friend

Kathleen Burkhalter grew up in Baguio in the Philippines and spent summers in La Union on the South China Sea. After many life adventures she found herself happily married to Bud Bell and became the mother of six extraordinary children. She has two degrees from Harvard, the most recent one a masters in Journalism.

She has a blog, Cresta Ola, and lives in New Bedford, Massachusetts with Bud, the family pets (four cats and a yellow lab named Cleo Pan de Sal), and the children, who are constantly stopping over at the family home on their way to big adventures.

Why yes, dear blog readers. Self was able to tear herself away from Miguel Hernandez’s poetry to take her regular Wednesday evening stroll to Stafford Park, two blocks down the street, to listen to the free summer concert.

Self keeps forgetting to note the name of the band.

Such a thrill to have a policeman stop traffic while she crosses the street.

She buys a hot dog with chips and a can of orange soda.

Listens for a while.

Walks back to the house. Resumes reading poetry.

In the Philippines, they would describe her thus: Ang babaw ng kaligayahan.

Which means: Cheap. Thrills.

But that’s why she loves summer. Because cheap thrills abound.

Stafford Park, Redwood City: There are free concerts every Wednesday throughout the summer, starting at 6 p.m.

About the poet: Miguel Hernandez Gilabert was born on October 30, 1910, to an impoverished family in the old Visigothic capital Orihuela, in the south of Spain. Of seven children, Miguel was one of only four who survived. His father raised goats and sheep, and for most of his life Miguel worked in the family business as a shepherd.

About the translator, Don Share: Don Share is the senior editor of Poetry magazine. His books of poetry include Squandermania, Union, and most recently, Wishbone.

Something about self’s mood today — she feels extremely argumentative. Ornery. So, take the following with a grain of salt, dear blog readers.

Self likes Luc Besson.

She really does.

She can never forget that Besson gave us the glorious Annie Parillaud in “La Femme Nikita.”

And Scarjo is one phenomenal actress.

And beautiful, too.

But “Lucy” is just one more in that long line of sub-genres that are little more than titillating flirtations with feminine degradation.

Like what happened to Noomi Rapace in “Prometheus”? You will like “Lucy.”

Like how the “Kill Bill” movies are one long revenge fantasy enacted by statuesque Uma Thurman?

You might like “Lucy” (though Besson and Tarantino are light years apart — that is, in terms of cinematic wit)

And what was that movie Kathryn Bigelow did with Ralph Fiennes, “Strange Days,” the one where you put on these special glasses, and while you’re raping a woman you can experience HER fear, which heightens your pleasure? The one that had Juliette Lewis’s skateboarding Goth waif bonding with pervert played by (typecast) Tom Sizemore?

Ugh.

MAJOR SPOILER ALERT!

One of the most painful scenes in “Lucy” was the one where Scarjo, having been kicked so many times in the stomach, starts crawling up the walls (literally). That was creepy and grotesque, as if science fiction was melding with Kafka. Might Scarjo actually turn into a bug? At one point, she grabs her long chain (she is chained to the wall) and runs full tilt — into, presumably, a wall. But mercifully, we are not actually treated to the glorious sight of a beautiful woman’s face slamming against stone. Mercifully, there is a cut right here. Next time we see Scarjo, she appears quite composed, with no external disfigurement other than a cut lip.

???##!!!

There is something self likes about “Lucy,” though.

Scarjo acquires a craggy-faced sidekick, a French investigator/cop(?) called del Rio. Now, that guy, though not conventionally handsome, is actually quite a find.

Luisa has degrees from the University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she was a Fulbright Fellow from 1992 to 1995. She has lived and worked in Hampton Roads for the last 13 years. She enjoys cooking with her family, book-binding, and listening to tango music.

Because I can’t help myself. And because writing, frankly, is the only thing I’m REALLY good at.

Honestly, if someone had told me, way back when, “Your life will be spent mostly in an empty room (empty of people, that is), writing stories of deep despondency, for which you will be paid nada,” I would promptly have said, “You’re crazy!” or, “You’re dreaming!” or, “Do you think I’m some kind of martyr?” Turns out I am all of those things: crazy/demented dreamer/ martyr. Maybe ALL writers are all of these things. Ugh. Welcome to my Pity Party.

Self has long pondered the difference between science fiction, speculative fiction, fairy tales, myths, horror stories and the “irreal.” The other day, she decided to go through the Café Irreal essay, “What is irrealism?”

She’d first read it several years ago, when she began writing lots of speculative fiction. It was nice to re-discover it.

The essay reminds us that, in “pre-modern” times, the people telling and listening to folk tales and legends assumed them to be “true.” These people, if they had heard Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” read aloud to them, “would most likely assume that the transformation” of the protagonist into a bug was likely the result of “a spell” (And why not? In “pre-modern” times, spells were considered practical ways to deal with malevolence; in other words, spells were not “magic.” They were solutions to a problem) For them, “the irreality of the story — which flows from an irresolvable clash between the real and the unreal — would be lost.”

There’s more, much more to ponder in the essay. Self recommends that readers go over to Café Irreal to read it in its entirety.

Self’s story, “The Secret Room,” is in the current issue.

At yesterday’s writers group meeting, self’s esteemed friend (and soon-to-be-famous published novelist) Lillian Howan mentioned that her son liked the list in the story.

Which, self confided to Lillian, was the trickiest part of the piece. Self had to keep working at it and working at it, constantly changing the items in the list because she was never completely satisfied with the “mix.”